On Tuesday, David Umahi, the Minister of Works, stated that the administration of President Bola Tinubu inherited 2,600 road projects across the country, valued at N15 trillion. During a meeting with contractors in Abuja to discuss “some salient issues on the state of road contracts and funding,” Umahi disclosed this.
“Mr. President, we inherited 2,600 projects worth over 15 trillion when we joined the team.”
“At that point, just roughly N2 trillion had been certified and paid for the current projects. We currently have about N13 trillion worth of outstanding projects.
“Some of them are under SUKUK, some budgetary provisions over a number of years, some being funded by NNPC tax credit while some with private sector tax credit, among others.
“Unfortunately, we were confronted with inflation after the fuel subsidy was removed and then the challenges of the Naira came. All of these made it mandatory that all projects must be looked into,” he said.
Umahi said some of the projects had lasted for 11 months and some over 18 months and above, which made inflation to affect their delivery. He noted that after a realistic look into the projects, the ministry realised the need to review most of the projects because of the conditions on ground.
The Minister disclosed that the ministry had appealed to the President to capture the projects in the 2024 budgetary provision, and he obliged the request. The Minister however, observed that the ongoing projects had very poor budgetary allocation ranging from N50 million to N100million.
“We also have some new projects; the constituency projects of members of National Assembly constitute over 90 per cent of the new projects.
“These constituency projects are also of very poor budgetary allocation of about N100 million to N200 million.’’ Umahi further disclosed that the ministry had about 30 projects in its 2024 budget, with N2 billion allocation .
He reiterated the commitment of the ministry to innovating ways to deliver on its mandates. In Spite of the challenges, we have really achieved a lot in this ministry. We have 330 projects that Mr. President approved on emergency basis totaling over N260 billion in cost.
“As of today, we have completed over 80 per cent of such projects. So, if we were to ask Mr. President to come over to commission them, there will be no time for him to do other things. I think that a cumulative project of over N260 billion is quite a milestone achievement for this ministry and for Mr President” he said.
Umahi, therefore, directed the Permanent Secretary to instruct all Regional Directors of the ministry, to carry out the inauguration of the projects nationwide, so that Nigerians would see what they were doing.
The minister also disclosed that from July, the ministry would be inviting the president monthly to commission mega projects across the six geopolitical zones.
